Hillary Clinton's secret

Hillary Clinton’s rigorous travel schedule has become the stuff of State Department legend: During her time as secretary of state, Clinton logged nearly a million miles traveling around the world.

The BBC’s Kim Ghattas followed Clinton for 300,000 of those miles and has a book out this week about the experience: “The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power.”

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“I’m about half her age, and I could barely keep up,” Ghattas told POLITICO in a sit-down interview. “The daily regimen was exhausting. I mean, sometimes we started in one country, and at the end of the day, we’d be four countries down the line, six time zones difference, six taco salads down the road.”

Sadly, Ghattas didn’t get frequent-flier miles out of the experience because the travel was on a government plane.

The secret to Clinton’s stamina, according to Ghattas? Hot peppers.

“She eats those hot chilis that make you sweat, and apparently, it’s one of the ways you can flush your system,” Ghattas said. “It wakes you up. It flushes your system, maybe from whatever viruses are there.”

Add to that a good old-fashioned case of adrenaline, and you’ve got the secret to Clinton’s success.

“I think it was the desire to do the job well. It’s what’s driven her for all these years. I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone that she works hard, does the homework.”

That travel will come to represent a major part of Clinton’s diplomatic legacy, says Ghattas.

“The impact of her travel, her relentless public diplomacy, was meant to reassert American leadership, to always be on the front page of papers everywhere, to improve the perception of America around the world.”

“The Secretary” is the first major book on Clinton to emerge following her departure from Foggy Bottom, and although it is not about her political future, Ghattas, who’s interviewed Clinton 19 times, knows that she’ll be inundated with requests to predict Clinton’s 2016 moves.

“She hasn’t made up her mind,” Ghattas said. “She’s a flexible, pragmatic person. That’s my one takeaway from watching her for those four years. … She’s going to study the lay of the land. She’s going to figure out whether Americans want to elect a Democrat to the White House for a third time in a row. She’s going to size up the competition in the Republican Party.”

Then there’s the issue of Vice President Joe Biden.

“Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton aren’t going to run against each other,” Ghattas said.

Clinton also has to be prepared for her soaring approval ratings to come down the second she re-enters the world of domestic politics, “because the minute you step back into the political fray, that’s inevitable.”

“But she will have to show how she was different from President [Barack] Obama, because the loyalty pays off; it has helped her restore her image, her standing. But when she wants to run, she will have to show how she’s different from President Obama.”

Ghattas says Clinton’s friends have a phrase for their hopes for her for the next two years: “beaches and speeches.”

“And they’re hoping it’s more beaches than speeches.”

The full video interview with Ghattas can be viewed at www.politico.com.